Next - AKSHAH at Zenith Kuantan. Last minute confirmation. Couldn't be bothered to join at first but Sher managed to drag me.

great food!

and KDYMM Sultan SANG for us. He was still going strong after song number 10.

food was marvelous, company was superb

the next day, Idzah and her hubby treated us to nasi lemak kerang at undertree restaurant at Teluk Chempedak.

love the camaraderie. thanks idzah and azman. i had a great time banging head with azman about education in general. azman being an ex lecturer and now a consultant was highly eloquent with his opinions regarding the subject.

“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long!”

I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of inservice. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife.

I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an ice cream company that had become famous in the middle1980s when People magazine chose our blueberry as the “Best Ice Cream in America.”

I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society.” Second, educators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure, and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! TQM! Continuous improvement!

In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced — equal parts ignorance and arrogance.

As soon as I finished, a woman’s hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant. She was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran, high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.

She began quietly, “We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream.”

I smugly replied, “Best ice cream in America, Ma’am.”

“How nice,” she said. “Is it rich and smooth?”

“Sixteen percent butterfat,” I crowed.

“Premium ingredients?” she inquired.

“Super-premium! Nothing but triple A.” I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.

“Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?”

In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap…. I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie.

“I send them back.”

She jumped to her feet. “That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business. It’s school!”

In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, “Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!”

And so began my long transformation.

Since then, I have visited hundreds of schools. I have learned that a school is not a business. Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night.

None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission, and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"

He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about teachers: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

To stress his point he said to another guest; "You're a teacher, Bonnie. Be honest. What do you make?"

Bonnie, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, "You want to know what I make? (She paused for a second, and then began...)

"Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could

I make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can't make them sit for 5 without an I Pod, Game Cube or movie rental.

You want to know what I make?" (She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table.)

''I make kids wonder.

I make them question.

I make them apologize and mean it.

I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.

I teach them to write and then I make them write. Keyboarding isn't everything.

I make them read, read, read.

I make them show all their work in math. They use their God given brain, not the man-made calculator.

I make my students from other countries learn everything they need to know about English while preserving their unique cultural identity.

I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe.

Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life."

(Bonnie paused one last time and then continued.)

"Then, when people try to judge me by what I make, with me knowing money isn't everything, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant...

You want to know what I make?

I MAKE A DIFFERENCE

"What do you make Mr. CEO?"

His jaw dropped, he went silent.

I would like to just post Jamie Robert Vollmer's conclusion

The second group argues that the comparison of children to blueberries is specious. Most of these people contend that the children are “the customers,” not the raw material. The truth is that no one can agree on who the “customers” are. Candidates include students, parents, grandparents, business owners, corporate executives, human resource directors, and college deans of admission. (I tend to designate the entire taxpaying public as the rightful customers. They are the ones who are paying.) This problem is further complicated by the fact that few of these “customers” can agree on what they want as a finished product, except in the broadest terms. Everyone has an opinion. Politicians and bureaucrats are left to define what children should know and when they should know it. And they are constantly manipulated by dozens of organized, aggressive, well funded special interest groups. Many of these groups have conflicting agendas that are directly at odds with the best interest of kids.

If the final product of the PreK-12 enterprise is a young adult prepared with the knowledge, skills, habits, and values needed to succeed in a fast-paced, global, knowledge society, then the quality of the “raw material”—the student’s talent, intelligence, physical and mental health, attention, and motivation—is a huge variable in the education process over which public schools have little control. Parents, teachers, administrators, board members, civic and business leaders must work together with the students to develop their potential and help them reach the goal. Whether they are called customers or workers is next to irrelevant.

btw, me dad was admitted to HoSHAS on Sat. suspected prostate cancer. he was soooooo angry i send him to hospital that he suffered a heart attack on his 2nd night there. at this rate think me the one going to grave first. HELPPPPPP!

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*****I slept and dreamt thatlife is joyI woke and sawlife is dutyI acted and beholdduty is joy

- Rabindranath Tagore

*****

I asked for Strength…And God gave me DifficultiesI asked for Wisdom…And God gave me ProblemsI asked for Prosperity…And God gave me Brain and BrawnI asked for Courage…And God gave me DangerI asked for Love…And God gave me Troubled peopleI asked for Favours…And God gave me Opportunities

I received nothing.I received everything.

- Author unknown

If – Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you;If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with triumph and disasterAnd treat those two imposters just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you've spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breath a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run -Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!